FROM DNA TO EH? BILL C-3: THE CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP COMEBACK TOUR

Hello my American Exceptionalists!  Could I ask you a private question?  In the quiet, dark moments, as you survey your crumpling democracy, do you wish you too could become a Canadian? Well, here it is...the newest, fastest, cheapest way to Canadian Citizenship.  Check your DNA, eh?

To check your Canadian Genealogy in Quebec:   www.banq.qc.ca/genealogie/

Transcript

From DNA to Eh?  Bill C-3: 

The Canadian Citizenship Comeback Tour

Lisa:  Hello, welcome to Yes, We Canada, I’m Lisa Evans and I’m your announcer. Please consider supporting our independent podcast with a paid subscription for as little as 3 dollars a month, by going to Yes We Canada dot Buzzsprout dot com and hit the support button.  You can cancel at anytime.  We thank you deeply for your support…and cross fade from commercial… to content…3,2,1…go. 

 Theme

 Lisa:  Canada curious?  Of, course you are!  This is the Yes We Canada Podcast the Progressives Guide to Getting the Fuck Out. This episode? From DNA to Eh?  Bill C3 the Canadian Citizenship Comeback Tour. 

Matt: Hey I’m Matt Zimbel in Montreal and hello to all my American exceptionalists!  Getting kinda crunchy down there in the USA   huh? 

 One of your leading scholars, Robin Williams, once said that "Canada’s the kindest country in the world. It’s like a really nice apartment… over a meth lab." 

Oh, dear goodness, we’re not 45 seconds into this pod and it would be utterly fair if you called me a smug Canadian and told me to fuck right off. 

Jesus…But what if I told you… there was a new piece of Canadian Immigration legislation  and that  I just might be able to make you into a smug Canadian?

 Pi, let’s roll the pack and tell them what they win!

 Announcer:  You too can become and Canadian and this is what you ‘ll win!  Free health care for life, free dental care for life (some restrictions apply), 12 dollar a day daycare, an Ivy league like collage education for 10 grand CND a year or less,  a child tax credit worth 8,157 dollars a year per kiddo and higher taxes  

MZ: Well, what did you expect – look at all the benefits! Of course, you have to a pay a few more bucks in taxes. For example, let’s comparison shop childbirth.

MZ; Pi, I’m not sure we have to look that closely at childbirth…but my question is, was that birth in America?  

 Pi:  Yep, Hackensack, New Jersey to be exact. 

 MZ:  Wow, sounds painful. 

Pi:  Oh, no…that’s not the birth, mom and baby have been home for weeks… happy and healthy – that’s screaming is mom getting the bill from the hospital and finding out that her “run of the mill” vaginal birth…

Pi: cost 26,000 dollars… American. 

MZ:  But hang a sec, with her insurance, her co pay in New Jersey would be about 1500.  Pretty cheap for the states…if you prefer a really bougie birth, get your vagina to South Dakota where the copay is almost 2800! US.  Which is 3829.00 Canadian. 

So yeah, free babies are good but… 

 (announcer) let’s see what else they win when they immigrate to Canada. 

Announcer: Tighter gun control, less crime, a modicum of diplomatic respect around the world, hockey, hockey, hockey…winter! Lots of ice, but no ICE!

 To enter:  Write to the I want to be Canadian Contest 1150 Avenue of the Americas ,New York, New York 10566, USA 

 MZ: Pi what are you doing?

Pi: You buried the lede again. 

 I’m sorry, oh, we do say that a lot. Ok, I am going to tell you how immigrating to Canada got easier for some people with very special DNA as soon as I get finished burying the lede. Stay with us…But first…

In the past two years it has become a lot harder to become a smug Canadian. Immigration programs for family unification have been reduced, foreign temporary worker permits have been cut by more than 100,000, student visa’s are down, spousal work permits, down…cut, cut, cuts. 

 The reason given is that Canada has a lack of infrastructure, it’s hard to find housing, it’s hard to find a doctor. Not hard for me to find a doctor – take a cab in any large city in Canada and more likely than not your driver was trained as a neurosurgeon in Ecuador or a Micro Vascular specialist in Pakistan. But to get a medical license in Canada?  

Well, (British) you know maybe if you’re British pip pip tickety boo or Australian (allo Bruce what seems to be the problem mate, your giblets malfunctioning ? or American (I’m makin coffee who wants coffee?) 

…well there are two potential explanations, either the Royal College of Physicians doesn’t like their new doctors too third worldly – or the Royal College of Physicians is trying to make ensure that Canadians have enough cab drivers…

MZ: I mean how many times have we heard stories of women who gave birth in cab?  You don’t think that’s a coincidence do you? Next to a hospital, a cab is the second safest place for childbirth in Canada. Soon you’ll start hearing stories about people who got an appendectomy in a cab…

Mimi: (deep breathing, in pain, teeth clenched…)

Driver:  Don’t worry I’ve done this before.

 Mimi: Shut the fuck up I’m having an appendectomy!

Oh my god oh my god oh my faaaaackkkkkkkkkkk 

Mimi: (oh, oh, (BREATH) at least….I wasn’ t late for work! 

MZ In fact, full disclosure here, lately we’ve been doing some cross border doctor shopping at your place. Looking for leftist American doctors willing to move to our place.  And it’s going good eh? Over 400 medical professionals from the US including 89 doctors and 260 nurse practitioners have immigrated to British Columbia in the past 12 months!   Because we’ve been down there RECRUITING big time. Boris the Beaver wants you!

I guess they immigrated to Canada because they preferred science backed medicine as opposed to whatever the fuck Secretary of Health Bobby Kennedy has been sellin’. 

 But look, if you’ve been following the pod for a while, you know you don’t just jump on a plane in your sweats and crash on the couch at our place until you have a regime change. 

 Unless of course you’re a 35 year old orthopedic surgeon trained at Harvard who also drives long haul semi’s on weekends.

 Immigrating to Canada is very hard, even though we’re the second largest country on earth measured by land mass – and even though we only have 40 million folks here. 

 Pi: uh, sorry to interrupt – fact check – we had 41 and a half million ish odd citizens but last year, for the first time since the founding of the Canadian confederation in 1867, Canada’s population declined last year

Pi:  We lost over a hundred thousand folks and now have forty-one million, four hundred seventy two thousand eighty one, not including Katy Perry who seems to be spending a lot of time here. Sorry to interrupt. 

 MZ:  We’ve always got time for facts Pi. Thank you.  So, we cut immigration and for the past 15 years our birth rate is down to the point where Canada is now considered an ultra-low fertility nation. 

Our vibe up here is “Less is more!”

 We need to grow Canada. We need things Canada lacks like – the big mo!   MOMENTUM, More people not less people!  We need innovators, thinkers, doers, people who bristle when they hear the words “status quo” - lets grow the tax base, the idea base, let’s grow the get ‘er freakin’ done base. 

Now sure, our record on immigration has been checkered through the years, in the 1700’s we deported a bunch of French people to the swampy part of your country so you could call them Cajuns, and discriminate against them while eating their delicious food. Then we built some underground railroads stations so your brothers and sisters could come here when they escaped your southern “plantations” so we could discriminate against them.  In 1939 we turned away the MS St. Louis, a boat load of more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, knowing full well what would happen to them when they were forced to return to Europe. It was called the Voyage of the Damned for a reason. After the war one of our Immigration officials was asked how many Jews the Canadian Government would resettle in Canada and he told the media that quote: “None were too many”. 

And then we did what we have become really good at …we apologized …said we’re sorry…formally - 80 years later … 

We put our Japs and our Krauts in internment camps during the second world war after we repossessed all of their worldly belongings – being nice Canadians of course and we also eventually said… sorry eh? … formally…  

And this should come as no surprise …we also managed to brutally terrorize the original folks who were living here when we arrived in the 1600’s as |the OG “landed immigrants”. Yep - the First Nations, the very same people who charitably helped us figure out how to survive the long cold winter.  

And then we did what we’re really good at, years later, we said; “sorry”.  Formally. 

Now we do a lot of land acknowledgements.  

So, you know, we’re cool but ...we can also be cold as ICE. 

 But here’s the good news. Here at last, is the buried lede…

In December of 2025 a new law came into effect. It’s called… C3. Cuz unlike you 

We tend to brand our legislation a little more generically. (announcer) 

 “Canada…Proudly, dull”, 

Could be the cut line up here sometimes!  

 Oh, you’re gonna love this:  C3 has a subtitle.  “An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act” – which sounds like it was written by the Department of Redundancies Department. 

 In the very short time it’s been on the books, this law has also become known colloquially as The Lost Canadians Act. And believe me after you guys re-elected your moron president MOTUS, we wish he and all those who voted for him would get lost, especially all my bro podcasters who are now in podcasting in denial… 

Joe Rogan 

 MZ: No offence, love ya man. Not.  

 What the C3 act says is:   if you have a molecule of Canuck DNA running through your bloodstream, say a grandparent eh? or even if your great grandparent had a pet beaver, …and you can prove that you have Canadian roots, (southern) well, sombitch come on up …the socialism’s fine! 

 And as far as we’re concerned, a great, great grandparent ? well, that’s a young’un, a punk even. You can trace your roots as far back as you want.  In Quebec we started keeping birth records in 1621 – just a year after your Pilgrims landed on that rock in Plymouth with the stupidest shoes to ever step foot in Turtle Island as it was known colloquially at the time.  

 So, think of this …if your great, great, great grandpappy got off a tall ship in 1621 from France, with scurvy and breath as fresh as a wheel of Epoisse and you can prove it…then the bureaucrat bouncer is gonna open the red velvet rope line and baddaboom, you’re in, eh? 

 You are Canadian! 

 When I grew up in New York in the 60’s the conservative right had a rallying cry “love it, Or Leave it” 

Love it or leave it. Used to be a slogan, now it appears to be instructions. In the year before Donald Trump returned to power in 2025 there were only 32 requests for ancestry vital records in Quebec. 

Fast forward just one year… 

And with Trump in office and there have been over a 1000 requests! The vital birth record requests are gettin’ vital!

MZ: get your vital ancestry records, vital ancestry records who’s got ‘em who needs ‘em, birth certificates, baptismal registrars, vital records, who’s got em? Who needs ‘em

Ok… go get a pen … you good?  Write this down:  www.banq.qc.ca/genealogie/

Now don’t be startled, but when you get to the landing page on the Quebec Genealogie site you’re gonna see a lot of pictures of white people in your browser, dressed in their Sunday best, usually standing in front of a Catholic Church. Recognize anybody?  Mami, Papie? Mon uncle Maurice? Taunt Celine? No.  Ok well, don’t worry, as with everything governmental there is process, and you can request a search of your genealogical line.  With all 1000 people in front of you it might take 11 months or so… But if your grand pappies’ name was Pete Winner, maybe, just maybe, he started life as Pierre Gagne from Trois Pistols, Quebec and baddaboom… you are Canadian. 

That $16,000.00 dollar ab implant you’ve been wanting for years… well, it might just be free! Think of the gym memberships you’ll save by becoming Canadian.

Did you guys know that Madonna and Hillary Clinton both have Canadian DNA?  

 Oh, dear mummy’s mad. You know who else is partially Canadian?  The former head of National Rifle Association Wayne LaPierre. 

Ok forget Wayne.  He’s been convicted of financial fraud for stealing 4.3 million dollars US from the NRA, in New York so we wouldn’t want him if he could – triggering bastard.

And also he can’t get into Canada because he’s a felon and we hate American felons here. 

 Felon…Ok I’m getting worked up – I’m gonna make Canada the 31st state – you dumb ass. 

Ok ok focus…Let’s assume your grandpapi, Pete Winner of Hackensack, New Jersey started life as Pierre Gagne. Grandpa Pierre’s mama was Canadian and she lived in Canada for at least 1095 days (3 years) and you can prove that, then you get your certificate of Canadian Citizenship. Merci, bonsoir!  

So, surely you can see how some folks who have been waiting for years for their permanent resident status to be confirmed or their parents to be allowed into Canada under the family unification program, might be a little pissed by this C3 business. I mean let’s face it they could have called the act the Nepo Baby Act to Amend the Immigration Act. 

When I was 14 my family lived in New York. One day my parents said, “get in the car were moving to Canada”.  

I said, Do I have to?

They said, yes.

I said, fuck.

We crossed the border in a little place called Woodstock, New Brunswick. At customs all six members of our family were given little pieces of paper stamped with the Canadian coat of arms and the date.  This paper proclaimed that we were now ‘landed immigrants’.  We were also given a white and red plastic card that resembled a charge card – there was a maple leaf, our name and a nine-digit number.  It was called– Social Insurance Card. The SIN card.

MZ: Welcome to Canada

Ok it’s been a while on the pod since we reviewed this - so here’s the whirlwind refresher on the pathway to Canadian citizenship.  Once you are a landed immigrant if you stay in Canada for 730 days with in a five year period, you can then apply for your upgrade to PR.  No, not Puerto Rican, although in Feb. when it’s 27° below zero with the wind chill factor, you’ll wish you were.  PR stands for “Permanent Resident”.  Which means you have almost all of the rights of citizenship, except you are not actually a citizen so if you commit a crime you could be deported. You know like a big crime, human trafficking, fraud over 5000 bucks and flaunting the laws of alternative side of the street parking. 

You can also come to Canada as a TR – and no that does not stand for Troubled Redneck – a TR is a temporary resident. If you’re in Canada with a work permit then you’re here as a TR,   then, if you qualify, you can upgrade from TR to PR after two years of residency. Add another year as a PR and then can apply for citizenship as long as you have remained in Canada for three of the past five years.  Got it?  No – just rewind that last section and listen to it few times it will eventually make sense both mathematically and legally. 

Now, providing you are not a total loser PR and have worked and paid your taxes and have not committed any crimes and remember that smoking pot is legal, so how hard could it be to be a law abiding citizen when 

(puff) you’re so totally stoned out of your mind on BC BudÔ (puff)  for the past three years that you can’t leave the house, (end puff voice) then your application will be approved and you can if you wish take the citizenship test. Yes, there will be a test. Unless you are under 18 or over 55 in which case you can just swear yourself in.

 Fuck, this is a cool country.

I took the test. I had not taken a test in 30 years. I was nervous. At the prescribed hour I showed up at a dusty government building in the Old Port of Montreal. With 75 other PR’s I filed into a large, drab, room decorated with a Canadian and Quebec flag. There were rows of tablet school desks …you know the ones with the chair welded to the desk.    

But hang on a sec!  All these tablet desks are built for right-handed people!  Woah! That’s not  fair, I’m left handed!  This is a democratic country? We’re here today to celebrate the ideals of democracy at this very prestigious and important citizenship ceremony and the motherfucking man is not woke enough to see that this desk is blatant discrimination?  

I did what any civil American would do.   I organized a protest.  

“Yo, my brothers and sisters, are we gonna let the man make us write this exam on the right handed people’s desk?  Speak my lefties! Who of y’all is left-handed?

Like any good lefty would I start a chant  

“Hell no, we won’t go, need a place for the elbow!  Hell no, we won’t go, need a place for the elbow!”  

The chants are getting louder and the democracy feels so good.   As we chant, we march around the room.  It’s a blur of accents, Turbans, Burkas, Baseball hats, and Yarmulkes. Our group, later referred to on the evening news as “The Leftists” are lined up against the wall, the right-handed people are all looking at us, a little put out, you know what those rights are like huh? 

After 10 minutes, the police arrive wearing full riot body armour. They assemble their front line on bent knee, and the row behind is locked arm in arm blocking the door, shields up, tear gas canisters at the ready

 I can hear sirens and a helicopter in the background.    

 The cops start beating their night sticks on their shields rhythmically.  The Captain of the riot squad  takes the megaphone and with typical Canadian police brutality he says:  

Skye: This is the RCMP. Ah, sorry. We’ll get you the left-handed desks right away, ah, sorry”.

A calm settles, the smoke clears.

Pi: Um, excuse me Matt, I don’t mean to interrupt and get all fact checky on you particularly while you’re in the middle of your truthy citizenship story, but I’m not sure you’re giving our exceptionalist listeners an accurate impression of police brutality in Canada.  (Beat).  I mean, it’s a thing, no?

Oh, yeah, Pi it’s a big thing. But it’s a kinder gentler type of police brutality and the cops keep fucking it up. During the G20 protests in Toronto in 2010 the cops ‘kettled’ protestors and 10 years later the protestors won a class action suit for 16.5 million dollars, paying protestors who were wrongly detained between 5000 and 24 ,000 dollars for their trouble. Then in 2015 in Montreal during the student protests that ended up taking down the provincial government the protestors won a 6 million dollar settlement against the police for brutality.  So Canada is without question one of the most profitable places in the world to demonstrate. It works like this: Beat. Pay. Say Sorry. 

This is the police…Beat you again soon!

MZ insert Ok, where was I, oh yeah, things calm down the cops get us lefties the correct desks and the instructor at the front of the class says, “I’m going to pass around the test, you’ll have 30 minutes to complete it and all of the answers to these questions were in the study book you received in the mail called “Discover Canada”. 

 Um, what book?  I didn’t receive a book. 

 Panic. I was supposed to study, but I did not know I was supposed to study. 

I look at the test. Hmmm, not bad; how many provinces are in Canada?  True or false “you must serve in the military when you turn 18”.  What is the official rodent of Canada?”.  I’m burning it up.  Easy peasy.  Done in 6 minutes, 100 questions, merci, bonsoir. 

I get up, first one done, hand in my test and they bring me to a waiting room.  My name is called. I approach a kindly looking middle-aged lady…citizenship judge?  high level immigration bureaucrat?  CIA informant – I have no idea who she is...

Lyne:  Bienvenu au Canada. Welcome to Canada

I almost start to cry. I’ve been living in Canada since 1971, it is now 2004 … I never thought I’d cry! 

She hands me a piece of paper with a date, time and address on it. 

Lyne: Please come back on this date for your Canadian Citizenship swearing in ceremony”. 

MZ: You mean I passed the test? 

Lyne: 100%.

On my way out, I walked past the riot police taking down their barricades, there was a little bounce in my step, because in a week, I’d be a Canadian Citizen, eh? 

Theme:

Thanks for listening to Yes We Canada. No AI was harmed in the production of this podcast.  Pi Salin Cutler is our sound designer and senior engineer.  The role of appendectomy girl was performed by Mimi Evans, the role of the head of the riot squad was performed by Skye Irwin, the role of Citizenship bureaucrat was performed by Lyne Tremblay. Our theme was written by Doug Wilde and Matt Zimbel and was performed by Manteca. 

Please consider supporting our independent podcast with a paid subscription for as little as 3 dollars a month, by going to Yes We Canada.Buzzsprout and hit the support button.  You can cancel at anytime.  Your support means the world to us. 

My name is Lisa Evans and I’m your announcer. 

Until next time!

Plagiarism Alert:   The “Write to the I want to be Canadian Contest 1150 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10566, USA “  was written by the Royal Canadian Air Farce Radio show in the 1970’s and was used with affection but without permission.  Thanks!  You can’t keep a good joke down!